Obtainment of the aisi 52100 steel powder with

wc addition through high energy ball milling

Bruna Horta Bastos Kuffner, Daniel Assis Amâncio, Geovani Rodrigues, Gilbert
Silva, José Veríssimo Toledo1
1
Universidade Federal de Itajubá

e-mail: brunakuffner@hotmail.com

The AISI 52100 is classified as a tool steel and has high level of carbon in its
composition, between 0,98 and 1,10 %. Presents good tenacity, hardness and
microstructural stability [1]. When added in the AISI 52100 steel, the tungsten
carbide (WC) increases the resistance of the tool, because it has great properties,
such as high melting point, superior hardness, low friction coefficient and high
oxidation resistance [2,3]. In this research, was processed through high energy
ball milling the scrap of the AISI 52100 steel together with 3% of WC with the
intention of increase the milling efficiency and obtain powders with particles next
to the nanometric scale. The parameters used in the experiments were: 15 hours
of milling time, 350 rpm of milling speed and mass/sphere relation of 1:10. To
evaluate the microstructure of the powders, were used scanning electron
microscopy and particles size distribution tests. Was possible observe the
following results: The powder without WC addition presented medium particles
sizes of 20 μm while the powder with addition of 3% of WC presented particles
size next to 1 μm, showing increase in the milling efficiency. Thus, the conclusion
of this work is that the addition of WC in the AISI 52100 steel through high
energy ball milling is successful to produce nanometric powders.

Keywords: AISI 52100 steel, tungsten carbide, high energy ball milling.

Acknowledgments: This work was supported by CNPq and FAPEMIG.

References:

[1] L. T. Sandor, I. Ferreira, A methodology for the evaluation of gradients of

toughness fracture along the layer of the hardened AISI 5115 steel, Revista
Matéria, v. 11, n. 2, p. 111 – 124, 2006

[2] G. Jin et. al., Characterization of WC/Co coatings on metal substrates, Mater
Lett, v. 61, p. 2454 – 2456, 2007.

[3] S. Shanmugam et. al., Solid state synthesis of tungsten carbide nanorods and
nanoplatelets by a single-step pyrolysis, J Phys Chem B, v. 109, p. 19056 – 19059,
2005.